Many home brew kits. both wine and beer, come with a package of isinglass for fining, Maybe the fish just donate it, and none are harmed in the making etc. Anyway, vegans are weenies so TFA is rather pointless.

/ has a wife that occasionally avoids the mammals. so, fish and birds... but, she only avoids cooking it. if someone else makes it, she'll eat it. since, like the dala lamai said, it's already dead, you might as well spare the feelings of your host.

Look. People who try to hunt down every semi-exception to vegan food in this world and then point and laugh at vegans are kinda dicks. Going vegetarian is pretty much the best thing you can do, environmentally, given how much energy goes into feeding and keeping livestock. Plus, they're not exactly treated well.

/ has a wife that occasionally avoids the mammals. so, fish and birds... but, she only avoids cooking it. if someone else makes it, she'll eat it. since, like the dala lamai said, it's already dead, you might as well spare the feelings of your host.

1. It isn't oil.2. Why would it be more "user-friendly"? Either a bunch of fish died to make the isinglass, or a bunch of ungulates died to make the gelatin.

Farxist Marxist:CheekyMonkey: Giltric: Vegans can make excuses for yeast being a living organism?

No, but HuffPo needs clicks. Also, 99.4% of all commercial beers use either isinglass or gelatin as a fining ingredient. Neither of which is vegan-friendly.

Vegans should just stay away from all alcoholic beverages, though, since they're all based on fermentation, which exploits yeast.

I tend to think of alcohol as yeast pee, rather than a yeast death by-product, This will make it more palatable to Vegans, who are used to being pissed on by real meat-eating alpha males.

Pfft. What do you think happens to the yeast after it's done fermenting the wort? You think the brewery releases it back into the wild, or sends it off to live out the remainder of it's days at Darryl Hannah's Yeast Sanctuary? No. It's MURDERED. BEER IS MURDER.

CheekyMonkey:I used to use gelatin to fine my homebrew, mostly because it was easier to get/cheaper than isinglass. Then I decided I didn't care. Leaving the yeast in means more B vitamins in the end product.

I use Irish moss. Regardless of the vegetarian aspect, if you've ever had a beer that was improperly fined with gelatin, you would never want to use it again. Gooey gelatinous beer is really gross (thanks for the experience Fantome).

cousin-merle:CheekyMonkey: I used to use gelatin to fine my homebrew, mostly because it was easier to get/cheaper than isinglass. Then I decided I didn't care. Leaving the yeast in means more B vitamins in the end product.

I use Irish moss. Regardless of the vegetarian aspect, if you've ever had a beer that was improperly fined with gelatin, you would never want to use it again. Gooey gelatinous beer is really gross (thanks for the experience Fantome).

Sounds pretty gross. Never ran into that problem myself, and like I said, eventually I stopped using finings at all. A couple of weeks in the secondary, and most of the yeast falls out of suspension on it's own. Plus, most of what I make is stouts & porters, so it's not like I'm going to read the newspaper through it anyway...

MindStalker:CheekyMonkey: Giltric: Vegans can make excuses for yeast being a living organism?

No, but HuffPo needs clicks. Also, 99.4% of all commercial beers use either isinglass or gelatin as a fining ingredient. Neither of which is vegan-friendly.

Vegans should just stay away from all alcoholic beverages, though, since they're all based on fermentation, which exploits yeast.

Umm, yeast is a fungus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeast , Vegans have no problem eating mushrooms.

The difference is, a yeast cell is the entire organism, a mushroom is not. Eating a mushroom (the fruiting body of the fungus) is akin to eating an apple, not the entire tree. The organism itself, the mycelium, is still living in the growing medium, whether it be soil in the case of white button mushrooms, or oak limbs in the case of shiatakes.

CheekyMonkey:The difference is, a yeast cell is the entire organism, a mushroom is not. Eating a mushroom (the fruiting body of the fungus) is akin to eating an apple, not the entire tree. The organism itself, the mycelium, is still living in the growing medium, whether it be soil in the case of white button mushrooms, or oak limbs in the case of shiatakes.

Vegans eat onions, which is the entire organism. Jains try not to kill the plant.

cousin-merle:CheekyMonkey: The difference is, a yeast cell is the entire organism, a mushroom is not. Eating a mushroom (the fruiting body of the fungus) is akin to eating an apple, not the entire tree. The organism itself, the mycelium, is still living in the growing medium, whether it be soil in the case of white button mushrooms, or oak limbs in the case of shiatakes.

Vegans eat onions, which is the entire organism. Jains try not to kill the plant.

Vegans don't give a shiat about plants. I was just pointing out that killing the entire organism (yeast cell) is different than eating the fruiting body of a mushroom.

Also, while I haven't tried it personally, I've heard that you can take the root end of an onion that you sliced off when you peeled it, plant it, and it will grow into another onion. I start all my onions and leeks from seed, but if I have extra room in that planting bed this year, perhaps I'll give it a try...